Hacker: Hardpressed Part 11

"Hiring a bodyguard to watch over me day in and day out is overkill. I'm not living under the shadow of this threat for the rest of my life. I can't live like that. I have lived like that, and I can't do it anymore."

"What about last night? I've never seen you like that. You were completely inconsolable." His hands fisted on the counter. "I couldn't even touch you."

"It's not usually that bad." Months had pa.s.sed since I'd had that same nightmare. Being in close contact with Mark had made the memory new again, the wound fresh. I shivered at the thought of it, toying with the food on my plate. My appet.i.te had disappeared, replaced by a knot in my stomach created by the truth in Blake's words. I would need to wrap my head around the fear Mark had planted, and I hadn't quite figured out how I was going to handle that yet. But I was pretty sure that employing a full-time bodyguard wasn't the way to go.

"If we do this, he wins. Can you at least try to understand that?"

"I think he wins if he figures out a way to get you alone again. Tell me that isn't something that worries you."

I winced at the thought. "I was an easy target before. Christ, I was almost unconscious. He's just trying to scare me now, and I'm sure that's what he's getting off on. Between you and Daniel, I don't see how he could realistically come after me." All rational reasonable thoughts, but I barely believed them.

"Well I'm going to make sure he doesn't."

His jaw tightened and bulged. Determination was written all over his face. I hadn't seen that look since he imploded my business deal with Max.

"What do you have in mind?"

"You should stay home today, Erica. It was a long night. You need to rest." His mouth was set in a tight line.

I waited for him to look at me, but he made quick work of cleaning up the mess in the kitchen.

"Stop changing the subject."

"I'm not. You look like you've been to h.e.l.l and back. You should take a day."

"Thanks," I muttered, pushing away from the table.

Disappearing into my room, I heard him call me back before I shut the door behind me. I'd wanted to resolve the distance that had come between us last night, but I was too tired and emotionally drained to fight with him now.

By the time I'd showered and dressed, Blake was gone. Uneasiness settled over me as I pulled my things together for work. He wasn't going to let this go. Nothing would sway him when he'd set his mind to something. When it came to my safety, he wasn't going to leave anything to chance.

I cursed myself for falling apart last night, but the thought of having to go through it alone, like I had so many times before, seemed far worse. I'd become used to being vulnerable around Blake, showing him my scars, my past. When I did, he didn't judge me, and somehow that gave the pain less power over me.

I had grabbed my keys and my bag and was heading toward the door, when Sid walked in. He looked as haggard as I likely did, pale despite his dark coloring with tired circles under his eyes.

"You're just getting in?"

"Yeah." He rubbed his neck and dropped his bag on the floor. "All-nighter keeping the site up. Great fun."

"Is everything okay?"

"It's fine for now. Chris is taking over until I can get some rest."

"I'm sorry, Sid. I'm going to take care of this. I swear it."

He shrugged, looking too exhausted to put stock in my words, and shuffled back to his room.

I made a beeline for my office, not bothering with h.e.l.los. Risa didn't take the hint and peeked around the part.i.tion, looking bright-eyed and perfectly put together as usual. I didn't have the energy to deal with anyone's issues or questions right now, but before I could tell her to give me a minute, she sat down in a chair facing my desk.

"I have big news." She grinned, her black shoulder-length hair framing her face.

I raised my eyebrows, already feeling agitated. Only something truly monumental could shift my focus this morning.

"What's that?"

"I got a meeting with the marketing director at Bryant's about a potential sponsored account with us."

Bryant's was one of the largest clothing retailers in the Northeast. Getting a meeting with them was in fact monumental enough to get my attention.

I shook my head, unsure if I fully understood her. "How did this happen?"

"Max. He has the connection. I let him know who we were looking to connect with and he offered to put me in touch. I got right through to the people at Bryant's this morning, and we have a meeting set up for tomorrow morning."

"Wow, that was fast."

"I know, but I figured we should take whatever they had available. The sooner, the better, right?"

"Absolutely. Send me the details. We'll meet with them together."

"Do you want to go over some options we can pitch and I'll pull together a presentation with those?"

I pulled my thoughts together and blew out a slow breath. My mission for the morning had to go on the back burner. "Sure. What have you got?"

CHAPTER SEVEN.

By noon, Risa and I had locked down the presentation, leaving me to my original plan for the day. I headed down to Mocha to caffeinate for lunch. I found a table and pulled out my laptop, figuring I'd take advantage of a short change of scenery.

"Hey. Mind if I join you?"

I looked up to find James pulling out the chair across from me. He looked fresh in a black b.u.t.ton-down rolled up at the sleeves and dark blue jeans, his wavy black hair perfectly mussed. No wonder Risa was all over him. He was definitely handsome in a bad boy kind of way. Built well with a killer smile and bright blue eyes that were like tractor beams, he locked me in every time. Something about his eyes made me feel like we'd known each other longer than we really had.

"Sure."

"You look like you're on a mission."

I chuckled softly. "I am actually."

"Can I help?"

I considered his offer for a moment. What did I have to lose by getting a little help? I started in on my plan.

"You know the hacker group, M89, that is attacking the site, right?"

He grinned. He'd been in the trenches with Sid and Chris for the past week, so he probably already knew their history better than I did.

"Okay, right. So this group isn't the original M89, but there has to be a connection between someone in the original group and whoever is heading it up now. They were all based in Boston a decade ago, so I figure it shouldn't be too hard to track where they're all at now and see where that takes us." I omitted the information about Cooper. I didn't want to shed any light on Blake's connection to the group and Cooper's suicide.

"You're going after these people yourself?"

I remembered Sid's defeated look this morning. "What choice do I have?"

"What if that just exacerbates the situation?"

"I have a hard time imagining a scenario more damaging than the one we're dealing with right now."

He pursed his lips and nodded. "Agreed. What can I do?"

I shared with him the names of all of the original M89 members that I needed to research. We split the names, and when we returned to the office, we set to work tracking down anything we could find on them.

To my surprise, I found a professional history for all of those on my list. Everyone seemed established with a career, though many were now based on the west coast working for technology companies in the valley. I studied their photos carefully, as if somehow their faces could tell me something I didn't already know. Which one of them hated Blake enough to sabotage us this way?

I jumped when my phone rang.

"Blake, hi," I said.

"How's everything going?"

I glanced at the names written in my notebook and shifted my thoughts back to where we'd left off this morning. "Fine."

"Listen, I have to go to San Francisco to take care of some business. I'm flying out tonight on the red-eye."

As annoyed as I'd been this morning, a pang of regret coursed through me. I tried rubbing the frown from my forehead.

"That's sudden."

"Something came up. I know this isn't a great time. I don't really want to leave you right now, Erica."

I sighed. "I'll survive."

"I'm confident of that. Have you met Clay yet?"

"Who?" I frowned again.

"I guess not. He's hard to miss."

"Who the h.e.l.l is Clay?"

"I've hired him to taxi you between work and home. He'll be outside the office when you need to leave tonight."

"s.h.i.t, Blake. We talked about this."

"We did, and this is what needs to happen, at least until I get back."

The coffee at lunch had given me just enough energy to be outraged.

"Have a great trip, Blake." I hung up and shut off my phone. I couldn't deal with his controlling s.h.i.t right now.

James came in then, stopping short when he saw me.

"You all right?"

I straightened and tried to put Blake out of my mind. "I'm fine. What's up?"

"What have you found so far?" He took a seat and lowered his voice as he spoke.

Not like researching the hacker group we'd all become so familiar with was a big secret, but I didn't want people to know I was on a wild goose chase to actually hunt them down. Thankfully, he already seemed to pick up on that.

"Some enviable LinkedIn profiles. Seems like everyone has moved on and is doing well. Upstanding citizens as far as I can tell. What about you?"

"Same with mine, but there are two people you missed from the list."

I hesitated, waiting for him to continue.

"I'm a.s.suming you know Landon was involved."

I nodded silently.

"Okay, and then there was Brian Cooper."

"He's dead," I said flatly, betraying what I already knew but had failed to share earlier.

He hesitated a second, no doubt registering that fact. "Right. Well, he was survived by his mother and his brother, Trevor."

"Did you find something on them?"

"His mother lives about twenty minutes from here."

"I doubt she's spearheading a hacker group. What about his brother?"

"I can't find anything on his brother."

"How is that helpful?" I regretted the way that came out. I was tired and edgy, but taking it out on James when he was only trying to help was unnecessary.

"Don't you think it's a little odd that every other person on this list has a glowing resume and the twenty-five-year-old little brother of their former partner in crime has absolutely no professional a.s.sociations, no Internet presence, no profiles, nothing?"

"Maybe he learned a hard lesson from his brother and decided not to waste his life online like the rest of us."

He tilted his head, looking as unconvinced as I felt.